Why Even Celebrate Pride?

A lot of people question why we even need to have Gay Pride. Why should we even be proud just because of the fact we are gay? Straight people don’t have “Straight Pride” and white/Caucasians don’t celebrate “White or Caucasian Pride.” I am not sure the people of Gay Pride had this in mind. Gay Pride has a much deeper meaning. Many in the LGBTQI community in the past have been oppressed, tortured, experimented on, lobotomized, beaten, pushed aside, cast out, criminalized, jailed and killed … all in the name of “trying to get the gay out.” In 1969 there was a major shift when the Stonewall riots took place. These people stood up and said enough is enough and we’re not taking this shit anymore. This spurred an entire new civil rights movement that we are still fighting today. A lot of people are upset that we haven’t come further, but progress has never happened overnight. African Americans fled to freedom for many decades from the South to the North prior to the Civil War. They were eventually “granted” freedom by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. They continued to be oppressed by discriminatory laws in the South, segregation and fear spread by the KKK. This fight continued for 101 years until the Civil Rights Act was signed into law in 1964. There were many others that were signed into law following this to protect people from discrimination in housing, employment and voting, just to name a few. The most recent of these laws was signed in 1991, and the fight for equality still continues. As you can see, our fight is far from over. Even the situation with “the church” has changed. Ten years ago when Cathedral of Hope OKC first started, we were one of two LGBTQIA congregations in Oklahoma City. Now there are three LGBTQIA congregations in the Oklahoma City metro area and there about a dozen more that are open and affirming. This is one way that the church has made progress in as little as 10 years. Progress on this scale will take time because educating people takes time. We cannot grow weary or get discouraged and we cannot stop our fight for freedom. If we lay down our guard, we will be oppressed in whatever way possible. We also had, and still have, a battle that had never been dealt with before. In 1981 HIV/AIDS was clinical discovered. People wanted to quarantine and ignore the LGBTQI community to keep “everyone else” safe. This was viewed as a punishment from God by many. The President of the United States didn’t publicly acknowledge HIV/AIDS for 4 years. Little spending was initially allocated to fight this disease because it was considered to be a “gay disease.” We had to shift the fight for our rights to a fight for our lives. Once the image of this disease changed, the support and fight to combat it changed. This horrible disease made a strength of the LGBTQIA community shine out… the ability to drop what we are doing, focus on what is important and take care of each other. Now that we have the knowledge and support to fight this disease, we have shifted back to fighting for our rights. Many people have sacrificed their lives, health, sanity, time, money and so much more than we realize for us to be where we are at. We have come very far and will continue to go farther. So we are not celebrating Gay Pride because of our sexuality, but because of where we have been, where we are and where we will go.

by Erik Kendall – Communications Lay Leader

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